The war which the Sultan had avoided in the West, came to seek him in the East.  To lift the Crucifix against the Crescent, at the head of the powerful but quarrelsome alliance between Venice, Spain, and Rome, Don John arrived at Naples.  He brought with him more than a hundred ships and twenty-three thousand men, as the Spanish contingent:—­Three months long the hostile fleets had been cruising in the same waters without an encounter; three more were wasted in barren manoeuvres.  Neither Mussulman nor Christian had much inclination for the conflict, the Turk fearing the consequences of a defeat, by which gains already secured might be forfeited; the allies being appalled at the possibility of their own triumph.  Nevertheless, the Ottomans manoeuvred themselves at last into the gulf of Lepanto, the Christians manoeuvred themselves towards its mouth as the foe was coming forth again.  The conflict thus rendered inevitable, both Turk and Christian became equally eager for the fray, equally confident of, victory.  Six hundred vessels of war met face to face.  Rarely in history had so gorgeous a scene of martial array been witnessed.  An October sun gilded the thousand beauties of an Ionian landscape.  Athens and Corinth were behind the combatants, the mountains of Alexander’s Macedon rose in the distance; the rock of Sappho and the heights of Actium, were before their eyes.  Since the day when the world had been lost and won beneath that famous promontory, no such combat as the one now approaching had been fought upon the waves.  The chivalrous young commander despatched energetic messages to his fellow chieftains, and now that it was no longer possible to elude the encounter, the martial ardor of the allies was kindled.  The Venetian High-Admiral replied with words of enthusiasm.  Colonna, lieutenant of the league, answered his chief in the language of St. Peter; “Though I die, yet will I not deny thee.”

The fleet was arranged in three divisions.  The Ottomans, not drawn up in crescent form, as usual, had the same triple disposition.  Barbarigo and the other Venetians commanded on the left, John Andrew Doria on the right, while Don John himself and Colonna were in the centre, Crucifix in hand, the High-Admiral rowed from ship to ship exhorting generals and soldiers to show themselves worthy of a cause which he had persuaded himself was holy.  Fired by his eloquence and by the sight of the enemy, his hearers answered with eager shouts, while Don John returned to his ship; knelt upon the quarter-deck, and offered a prayer.  He then ordered the trumpets to sound the assault, commanded his sailing-master to lay him alongside the Turkish Admiral, and the battle began.  The Venetians, who were first attacked, destroyed ship after ship of their assailants after a close and obstinate contest, but Barliarigo fell dead ere the sunset, with an arrow through his brain.  Meantime the action, immediately after the first onset, had become